Ariel Estrada is an actor, singer, producer and Executive Director of Leviathan Lab, a creative studio for Asian American performing artists. Under Leviathan Lab, he has produced acting and writing salons, cabarets, fundraising events, staged readings, showcase productions, and short films – including, in association with Actors Equity Association’s Equal Employment Opportunity Committee, the 2011 Asian American Heritage Festival; a critically acclaimed 2011 production of Twelfth Night, starring Obie-award winning actor Jojo Gonzalez, and directed by Nelson T. Eusebio III (Assistant Director under Daniel Sullivan, The Public/NYSF 2011; Lincoln Center Directors Lab), with music by Jason Ma (Broadway: Miss Saigon, The Sly Fox, Shogun the Musical); and, in 2012, through a gift from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council–Manhattan Community Arts Fund, an immersive, site specific piece MIGRATION NATION, which utilized the entirety of the artist collective Space on White, exploring the experiences of contemporary Filipina migrant workers.
Also in 2012, Ariel served as Executive Producer for Leviathan Lab’s short film Two Weeks, which was selected as a featured film in the 2013 Screen Actors Guild Shorts Showcase, and a winner of the 2013 Film Festival Flix Short Film Competition.
As Executive Director, Ariel has secured two consecutive grants (2012, 2013) from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for his work with Leviathan Lab, as well as for the international award-winning men’s barbershop chorus Voices of Gotham (2013) and for Empire City Men’s Chorus. Leviathan was also selected for the 2011 Artist Residency Program at Space on White, where Leviathan developed and produced over 30 new plays and screenplays under the auspices of its groundbreaking Asian American Women Writers Workshop. In 2012
Ariel is currently the Financial Administrator for Digital Media at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under Chief Digital Officer Sree Sreevinasan (Top 25 Media People to Follow on Twitter, AdAge; 35 Most Influential People in Social Media, poynter.org; Contributor, CBS News and WABC-TV and WNBC-TV in NYC). As an actor and singer, Ariel has performed on television, film, commercials, industrials, new media, and on, Off, and Off-Off Broadway. He is also an accomplished Fortune 500-level graphic designer. His portfolio can be found at arielestradadesign.com